Miscellaneous

Lake County Press, Issue 2795, 24 July 1919, Page 7

Miscellaneous

MAJOR AT TWENTY-THREE. , w Tho youngest major in the British ] v . Army is said to be Major Gregson, ol the 3/3 Monmouthshire Regiment, how . j> ( stationed at Oswestry. He was pro- l, motod to that rank when he was under j,. twenty-three yoars of age. ' I ra cc A PROUD GRANDMOTHER. a 01 With fourteen tiiandsons serving in vl the Army, Mrs. Wear, aged ninety, who lives in an almshouse at Cosham, near Portsmouth, lias received a letter of congratulation from the King. She has had one sou killed in the war. be ■ a lx JAPAN'S CHANCE. „ '1 he banishment of German shipping tl from the ocean highways has had a re- 01 markably stimulating effect on the Japanese shipping trade. Its latest do- tl \ elopment is the establishment in Lon- B ] don of a great Japanese shipbuilding y firm. C( HEIGHT OF A ZEPPELIN. » n Here is a short and easy way of deter- s mining the height of a Zeppelin. A s piece of wood two inches long, and a v quarter of an inch wide would com- n plotely blot out a Zeppelin, if it were c 7,000 ft. away, and tho piece of wood I: held about two feet from the eye. 1: "~—"~~ i i BLUE UNIFORMS BARRED. ,< 1 1 Among other steps taken by the Ca-' c nadian hospital authorities towards j t bringing back to health men who havei a , been invalided home from the Front,fi is tho abolition of the blue hospital' uniform, which is declared to have a harmful effect on convalescence. » j; LIVING AEROPLANES. ! \ It would be a mistake to suppose ■ that tho bird's wings enable it to fly. If wings spelt flying, any of us could ' attach a pair and soar into the air. The hollow-bones make light bodies, but they are attached to a rigid backbone, | which forms the main feature of the i ! bird's body. This gives the central firmness, and the muscles do the rest. . The wings balance their owners, and the ] tail acts as a rudder for steering. { Dften enough the bird seems to use its ! tail as a sort of brake. j It is interesting to compare the bird { with.the product of man's skill—tho (aeroplane. To begin with, there is no 'aeroplane made which copies the up-and-down motion of the bird's wings, | all our machines having fixed wings, or ' planes. But, naturally, man first tried ; to copy the living fliers around him. He made wings of feathers,'etc., connected them with his shoulders and legs, and found that his muscles could not raise him an inch. The muscles, or motors, which now drive him through ihe air are as strong as 200 horses, so no wonder he failed at first. Even tho bird, with a body so perfectly formed for flight, has flying muscles equal in weight to all its other muscles put together. TRY DOCKING A WARSHIP. ! One of the operations a naval office. | dislikes more than anything else is locking a big warship to undergo re- , pairs. It is one of the most difficult j i tasks imaginable, and the slightest | carelessness may mean damage done to

, I the extent of some thousands of^popnds. r * Before being floated into the dock the » vessel is usually 'ightened of every- . thing that can be easily taken from ? her, and then she is towed in by tugs. The neatest care has to be taken to • get the huge mass to float in exactly I its proper position so that, when tno i water is pumped- out of the dock,.it .will come to rest upon the keel blocks in such a way that its great weight, is evenly distributed. These big repairing docks, or graving docks, as they are usually called,' aire built in a series of stops so that .they are much narrower at the bottom than at too top. These steps give support vessel upright. A float, called a "marker, is used to show that the died. The United States had about battleship is in its right position before tlio water is drained away. Any miscalculation and the vessel might heel over, and there is no stopping a 25,000ton ship when it begins doing that. •' ■ ... r <■ ■ • I ALUMINIUM MONEY. ' The fact that the Chamber of Commerce of Marseilles, owing.to the shortage of currency, has issued aluminium counters for small change, is another illustration of the way in which old customs are being introduced to .meet the exigencies of the times. Among the numerous minor Grecian States, and in early mediaeval Europe, separate coinages were, of course, issued, not only by individual nations, but by cities, and even families. Such local coinages were valid only .within a certain restricted area, and this is the case with the present issue-* at MarI seillcs, which has no value outside the j pity limits. | t>APER SUBSTITUTES FOR CLOTH. ( It was announced last November by I the Austrian Ministry of War that ! paper vests and foot coverings had been received for the forces in the field, and j that the officials should instruct the men that paper, as a poor conductor of heat, was. an excellent protection against cold. Attention was also called to the hospitals that paper was a good substitute for fabric, and. that cellulose wadding afforded a sanitary dressing for wounds. Recently, at the suggestion of Max Schuschny, an exposition of paper products designed as protection against cold and a substitute for cloth, was held. The invitation to exhibitors brought 50, and within five days 20,000 persons had visited the exposition. Of all the useful articles exhibited, perhaps the most important was the "Danish quilt," consisting of crumpled newspapers. These, coverlets have been used extensively for .hospital purposes in the royal palace of Austria. RICH PROVINCES. Quite apart from strong sentimental reasons, French people want to get their lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine back because of their actual value.. In the provinces are some of the freatest potash mines 'in the world, heso mine 3 alone yield £4,000,000 worth of potash every year. Naturally, while the Germans have owned them they have made many millions out of them, supplying the world with potash, and with fertilisers from the rock salt which is mixed up wim the notash beds. * * . . Another fact about Lorraine which will surprise most people is that it has half the world's supply of iron ore, as well as huge untapped coal deposits. For the coal alone France would like Lorraine, for she is short of coal, and has to import 10,000,000 tons a year. Altogether, the return of Alsace Lorraine will increase France's annual income by some £10,000,000, so there is a business side as well as a sentimental one to the recapture of the lost pro vinces END OF THE WORLD. V new kind of end of the world has been imagined by M. Louis Rabourdin, a French scientist. Sometimes it has been suggested that the world will eraduallv become cold, so that life will bo frozen out. M. Rabourdin, however, thinks it possible that the earth might end in an incandescent blaze. _ The earth's crust, ho says, is very thin at the bottom of the sea, and should it give way in consequence of volcanic action, the earth might be consumed in flames. '"Suppose," ho states, "that,-.follow-an extraordinary twisting movement, due to retreat of the central mass, a large mass of the sea-bottom should give way, and, falling suddenly, should let in the mass of the. ocean s waters upon the incandescent interior matter. The water would be decomposed by the heat, tho hydrogen, would burn, and it would burn more as it had access to more oxygen. "The conflagration would then gain in force, accompanist by electric phenomena, and the greater part of the earth's crust would probably be dis I placed. The earth, passing through - - ; critical epoch and returning for tin ,jtime being to its formative period » would again be nothing but a globe. ol t fire." ! "^